Why my system has detail but no body & warm vocal?

Newbee: While i know that your "invitation to debate" was made to Bob & Mejames, i'm going to butt in ( what else is new ??? ) and throw some thoughts your way.

If you know what passive components go into building a tone control or filter ( and i think that you do know ), then you should know how other passive components like cables can alter the tonal balance of a system. All of these do the same thing i.e. they alter the load that the circuit in front of them sees and the electrons respond accordingly to those changes. There are differences though.

Tone controls or filters offer predictable results due to their presence being factored into the total impedance / conductivity of the circuit. The variables entered into the equation with different components and their various electrical characteristics responding to various cables contributing their individual and quite random electrical characteristics throw all formulas to the wind. This is why cables can tend to produce different results when paired with different components. The levels of stability and impedances / loads encountered with different combos can be quite varied. As such, the presentation from system to system is a combination of all of those factors combined.

I would suggest looking at the various waveforms / different transient responses / loading characteristics that can be experienced when substituting various speaker cables into what is an otherwise consistent system. The article / test results that i'm referring to can be found at Pass Labs under the title of Speaker cables: Science or snake oil.

After viewing the test results and reading the information that Nelson documented while doing this research, I would also look at the differences in frequency response of an amplifier itself as the load that it sees is altered. Some results can be found in an article titled Questions of impedance interaction that was printed in the January 1994 edition of Stereophile. Bare in mind that you are looking at the frequency response of the amplifer itself as the load changes, NOT the frequency response of the speakers connected to the amps in question. One should note that many of the amps share common loading characteristics with certain speakers, which is why some speakers seem to have a very specific sound to them whereas other speakers can be "chameleons" when different amps are substituted into the system.

Now if you take into account that one could simulate different loading conditions by altering various aspects of inductance, capacitance, impedance and reactance using passive components, you can begin to see that cables CAN play a role in how components sound / load up. On top of this, just as an amplifier responds to the load that is presented to it by the cabling / speaker, components respond to the load that is presented to them by the cabling and component(s) that they are loading into.

I specifically remember Frank Van Alstine working with Julian Hirsch on this subject. Frank actually demonstrated to Julian that some components were 100 times more susceptible to cable loading than other, more stable designs. The funny thing about all of this is that Frank is basically a "cable naysayer" yet he knows what he does about loading variables, etc...

While some would say that "all designs should be stable" and i agree, unfortunately, this is not the case with every component known to man. As such, one must "experiment" with various components / cabling to see just how they do respond to changes and if the changes are both discernable and beneficial to the reproduction and enjoyment of music. Sean
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Sean, You're always welcome to butt it - you usually shed lots of light in dark places. My point, if I have only one, is that trying to improve a system thru changing cables can be a frustrating and expensive pursuit, not to be undertaken lightly. Some times I get a bit annoyed in this forum as it seems when ever some one has a tonality problem everyone immediately suggests that its best remedy is to change cabling. In my experience much more progress can be made in careful attention to in-room acoustics and placement of speakers and listening position. My unstated challenge to Bob and Mejames was simply to recommend a specific cable to Yxlei that they knew would work with his components and would be cost effective. Its too simple to say if you want more warmth get, lets say, Cardas (but I think you may give up some resolution in the process) or Nordost if you want more detail (but then you may risk getting enhanced highs eviscerated bass and dammed little warmth), all of course depending on how your amps and speakers see them (thats how mine did). What was interesting, in my case, was that it didn't make much difference which amp I was using, the signature of the cable remained close to the same. Then you always have the neurosis to deal with - OK this cable sounds pretty good, should I stop now or is there a better cable at hand I just haven't heard yet. Judging from the number of cables for sale a lot of people are still looking. Enuf for cabling! I ain't against it, I just view it as a tweek which can make a great system even better but it can't make gold out of lead.

If I had a second point, and in fact it was my main point all along, its about proper set up, a subject which I think many either ignore, hoping in vain to solve their problems with electronics and wires, or just don't understand at all. Its one that you recognized in your initial response. Something as simple as, perhaps lowering his speakers somewhat might reinforce the 200hz range and give him the body he was looking for in his speakers. Or moving his listening position might put him in the apex of a standing wave and give a sense of enhanced lower registers (his listening position could be in a null). And this costs ZIP except for the time required to learn about speakers, room acoustics, and a lot a patience, or a sound meter, a good disc of tones, some graph paper and a lot more patience. Reves recently suggested that perhaps we need a seperate forum for this as doing a search for prior posts is frustrating at best. I'm done now - time for bed! Thanks for listening to my rant.

Sean,

I too like the quotation "all designs should be stable" and I shall realy repeat it and emphisize it to all audiocomponents.

There is a plenty of effort already had been placed onto design of every audio component to be that stable AND independed.

As to the wires they can only be a "passive reactive elements" such as filter block or shunt on radio and video freequencies. Even if the wire is designed as a shield from such the component can still have a possibility to oscillate from RF and VF interfearance if not properly designed.

The bottom line is that if there is such degree of instability present than it should be infinitessimally small and applying wires that are designed to block RF and VF will change the sound by only small fraction of decibell.

Sounds like your room to me. The first thing to do is get a bunch of blankets and towels and cover any hard reflective surface in the room especially the front half by the speakers. If you sit close to a back wall this should also be covered. Now play your lacking body cuts and see if the problem has gone away. Slowly remove the dampening blankets until you achieve an acceptable balance in the sound. A mix of half absorptive and half reflective is best along with uneven hard or reflective surfaces for diffusion. Avoid a large hard surface any where near your speakers as this will give an early reflection in the sound which will smear the image and harden the critical midrange. The ear needs 10 milliseconds between direct and radiated sound if your imaging and intelligibility is optimized. (Sorry Amar).

Ron-C